| > Because it's easier to convince the company's executives to do that than fix the systemic issues that are truly eating up software engineer bandwidth. Yes and no. Politics and systemic issues are hard to face up to, but sometimes they make the problem worse, so they really do need to be fixed to make the problem any better. Say you have everyone working 70 hours a week, and someone thinks to throw more people at the problem. You start interviewing. 2 weeks later, Bob quits in a fit of rage. (Or maybe hospitalized for exhaustion and quits. Whatever.). Now you're down an engineer, and you have to find two more engineers, making the HR department work even harder. 3 weeks later you find _one_ developer. You can't seem to find another - between good talent being hard to find, and people suddenly getting cold feet after doing face to face interviews with your blurry-eyed engineers... well there's a talent crunch going on after all, don't ya know? ;-) And you're now 6 man weeks behind (and no closer to your goal of another engineer). Boy, this new guy better hit the ground running, because you really need the help... |